Since Henry Cavendish's discovery of “flammable air” in 1766 (named “hydrogen” by Antoine Lavoisier in 1783), hydrogen is widely used in chemical synthesis, in hydro-cracking of natural hydrocarbons, in food industry, in welding, as a rocket fuel, etc. There have been a lot of efforts to develop new technologies based on the use of hydrogen in automobile and other engines, since it might provide a powerful and clean source of energy. It would improve the environment by reducing air pollution necessarily produced by burning hydrocarbon fuels, reduce people's oil dependency by limiting the consumption of oil-based products for energy generating, save natural oil supply in the earth that is gradually depleting for other productive purposes, and also would drive down gasoline prices and other consumer prices dependent on the oil price.
Some world-renowned carmakers (such as BMW, Mazda, etc.) propose hybrid solutions combining traditional fuels (e.g. gasoline) of internal combustion engines with hydrogen. These technologies require means for production, storage, and utilization of hydrogen for the engines. Many U.S. patents describe different devices and methods dedicated to the hydrogen and hybrid technologies.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,681 to Uozumi Sutekiyo teaches that “Comparison of this volume with the above-mentioned upper limit of hydrogen concentration (C.sub.2 .perspectiveto.75%) shows that the use of air as a source of oxygen allows complete combustion of hydrogen during a gas explosion reaction only when the hydrogen concentration is less than about 30%, and that there would be an oxygen deficiency in the range above that hydrogen concentration.” The Sutekiyo's patent is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
It further states that “The detonation reaction can be expressed with the simple reaction formula 2H.sub.2+O.sub.2 .fwdarw.2H.sub.2 O, in which much heat of reaction is produced, that is, 2H.sub.2 (g)+O.sub.2 (g).fwdarw.2H.sub.2 O(g)+115.6 Kcal (1). In this case, the heat generated amounts to more than twice that of gasoline per gram. The reaction may seem simple at first glance, however the mechanism itself is a complicated chain reaction involving the free radicals H., O. and .OH. The characteristic curve taken at temperature T.perspectiveto.770.degree. K. in FIG. 2 indicates that no explosion occurs when the pressure P is in zone Z.sub.1, below about 5.3 .times. 10.sup.2 Pa. What is called a low pressure explosion takes place in zone Z.sub.2, from zone Z.sub.1 to about 5.3 .times. 10 .sup.3 Pa. No explosion occurs in zone Z.sub.3, from zone Z.sub.2 to about 8.0 .times. 10.sup.4 Pa. However, when the pressure P exceeds this latter figure, i.e., in zone Z.sub.4, a high-pressure explosion (also called a thermal explosion) occurs.”
Thusly, the thermal explosion reaction takes place when the pressure is higher 80,000 Pa (the normal atmosphere pressure is 101,000 Pa) at a temperature level of 770.degree. K or about 500.degree. C. This gives an opportunity to build an engine based on the explosion hydrogen-oxygen reaction, wherein the reactants (hydrogen and oxygen) used in the reaction in the optimum proportion providing the most efficient energy outcome. Such engine would also be essentially free of environment pollutions.
What is the way of realization of the opportunity offered by the Sutekiyo's invention? Briefly stating, that invention structure comprises a gasifier furnished with an ultrasonic spray generator, ultrasonic transducer, and an induction heating W-net (with a high-frequency energy source) for transforming liquid water into steam forwarded into a turbo-supercharger. The turbo-supercharger includes a turbo-fan drive motor for drawing the steam into an intake fan, and further into a first discharge section with a high voltage means to obtain an atmospheric discharge producing a first-step (anisothermal) plasma. A second discharge section intakes the plasma, wherein the discharges are conducted in order that the plasma energy at the second step will be more intense, and the plasma is inductively heated from outside of the second discharge section, using high-frequency waves to increase plasma temperature. The exhaust gas (mainly steam) is eventually introduced to the gasifier to provide the waste heat to the gasifier and to supply gaseous water into.
In the other words, there are several different energizing means involved in the process of carrying out the desirable reaction, including: ultrasonic, induction heating, turbo-drawing, first electric discharge, second electric discharge with high frequency waves, exhaust heat utilization, etc. It is believed, that the method and apparatus disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,681 (issued in 1986) are significantly energy consuming, and involve substantial losses of heat produced during the explosive plasma reaction that diminishes the efficiency of the invention. The heat losses are caused by a substantial under-using of the high temperature plasma heat, which in turn requires more consumption of energy from the energizing means to further continue the plasma reaction. As presently known to applicants, the apparatus and method are not noticeably usable in practice.
A second opportunity suggested by the aforesaid patent is that making the concentration of hydrogen in its mixture with air less than about 30% might lead to complete combustion during the explosion reaction. This way is not explored in the Sutekiyo's patent, possibly to avoid storage of hydrogen for the engine. The Sutekiyo's patent was filed in 1984, at which time the knowledge about special gas adsorbing materials for compressed gas containers, according to a U.S. Pat. No. 4,619,225 to Lowther issued in 1986 (discussed herein below), was not available. Therefore, Sutekiyo dealt with only the pure hydrogen-oxygen reactions wherein both reactants were obtained from water.
A U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/374,779, hereby entirely incorporated by reference, filed by Yuriy Yatsenko on Mar. 14, 2006, discloses an apparatus, including an internal combustion engine. For powering the engine, the apparatus has a fuel (mainly hydrogen) storage means and also produces hydrogen fuel from water. It comprises water supply means; controlling means; a collector, receiving combustion products output from engine's operation; a transformer, utilizing thermo-impact of the combustion exhaust products and dissociating supplied water into ionized hydrogen and oxygen; an ion divider electrically separating hydrogen and oxygen ions; exhaust means outputting exhaust products from the collector into the atmosphere, on their way out heating water in the water supply means. The fuel storage means initially contains liquid hydrogen or another predetermined fuel. Electrolyzer means are provided to supplement hydrogen and oxygen ions production.
The aforesaid invention utilizes a principally different way for obtaining hydrogen and oxygen from a water body using the heat of the combustion exhaust directly for dissociation and ionization of the water body. Namely: during the combustion process, within about 5 minutes, the exhaust products reach a temperature substantially in the range from 800.degree. C. to 1000.degree. C., and are expanded into the collector. Molecules of the water body contained in the transformer are subjected to a thermo-impact or thermo-impulse and an essential portion of those molecules momentarily dissociate eventually into positively charged hydrogen ions and negatively charged oxygen ions. It is known, that Lavoisier, a famous French physicist, observed such process in his experiments with pouring water onto an incandesced iron rod (made white-hot), and he was able to register hydrogen and oxygen as output products of the reaction.
The aforesaid invention implements a separation of the ionized hydrogen and oxygen gases within the ion divider, essentially shaped as a V-like tubular chamber. The divider has a knee-like junction in its bottom region joining its two tubular portions: a left and a right portion. The left tubular divider portion within its top region has, for example, a hydrogen outlet, and the right tubular divider portion within its top region respectively has an oxygen outlet.
Each tubular portion of the divider contains a coil disposed along the inner sidewall of the portion, with a lower end of the coil positioned in the bottom region of the divider, and a top end of the coil positioned in the top region of the portion. The top end of each coil is electrically connected to a respective pole of a DC source (e.g. the top of the left coil is connected to the plus-pole, and the top of the right coil is connected to the minus-pole). This allows collecting hydrogen positive ions in the top region of one tubular portion, and the oxygen negative ions correspondingly in the top region of the other tubular portion. The resultant hydrogen gas is further pumped into a hydrogen tank, wherein it's stored in a compressed state, and controllably fed into cylinders of the internal combustion engine. The resultant oxygen gas is directed either into the atmosphere (for car embodiments), or into the collector to chemically react with the exhaust products within the collector, and to raise the temperature inside the collector (for truck embodiments).
The invention disclosed in the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/374,779 has an advantage of utilizing the high temperature of combustion exhaust for further producing the hydrogen gas from water through said thermo-impact effect, thereby partially replenishing the consumed amount of hydrogen from the tank.
On the other hand, it is now believed that using the combustion reaction of hydrogen with air oxygen in the traditional way, described in the patent application Ser. No. 11/374,779, decreases the efficiency of that invention. The produced oxygen is not used for the combustion reaction in the engine cylinders that is simply wasted in the car embodiments, or used for the aforementioned supplemental purpose in the truck embodiment. Instead, the produced hydrogen reacts with the oxygen of air freely incoming into the cylinders in a random ratio with the incoming hydrogen, which is not highly efficient for the reaction (see the above mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,625,681). As a result, the level of power produced by the engine of that invention is essentially lower than its potential maximum.